Back to the office for South Africans

Several South African companies – including Vodacom, Nedbank, and Arena Holdings – are forcing their employees to return to the office as the work-from-home trend has started scaling back worldwide.

The convenience and flexibility of working from home became a defining feature of the Covid-19 pandemic. 

However, a recent trend in South Africa suggests a shift in this paradigm. Companies are re-evaluating their work-from-home policies, with a move towards a more office-centric approach gaining traction.

According to Rapport, the most recent cases of this were Nedbank and Arena Holdings, both of which amended their work-from-home policies.

Arena Holdings – which publishes the Sunday Times, Business Day, Sowetan, and TimesLive – ordered its employees back to the office full-time to arrest a decline in productivity and performance.

Nedbank announced stricter remote working policies, requiring staff to be in the office at least three days per week, including Mondays and Fridays.

Previously, Nedbank allowed employees to work remotely three days per week, according to MyBroadband.

Earlier this year, Vodacom ordered senior staff to return to the office, ending the company’s blanket hybrid work-from-home policies.

“This move has been necessitated by the prevailing complex business environment caused by various micro and macro-economic challenges,” a Vodacom spokesperson told MyBroadband.

Vodacom said its business environment requires fully present and accessible leadership to steer the organisation in the right direction.

“Therefore, in our view, by being on-site, leaders can collaborate more effectively and ensure issues are resolved timely for our customers,” the company said.

“Being back at the office also means opportunities are executed at pace, and leaders steer the business to new levels of success.”

Until February this year, Vodacom allowed all employees to work from home twice a week, where their jobs allowed.

Companies that implemented highly permissive remote working policies have struggled to reverse them as problems started emerging.

Decreased productivity, higher staff turnover, and training and onboarding difficulties are some of the issues organisations started experiencing with the advent of work-from-home.

These companies are part of a wider trend of South Africans returning to work in the office after the Covid-19 pandemic accelerated the trend of not working from a traditional office.

Discovery Bank’s SpendTrend24 report, compiled in collaboration with Visa, looked at data from Discovery Bank’s clients in South Africa, data from over 60 million Visa cards worldwide, and over 3 billion transactions. 

Discovery Bank CEO Hylton Kallner told a media briefing that the research aimed to understand where and how South Africans spend their money. 

Around two-thirds of South Africans’ spending is on groceries, fuel, retail, and travel. Discovery did a deep dive into these areas to determine how people spend in them. 

With regard to fuel spending, Discovery Insure data reveals that clients are travelling more post-pandemic than ever before. 

In 2023, they drove more than in 2022, but with a twist — despite making 10% fewer trips, they’re covering 40% more distance on average each month. 

The report attributed this to lifestyle changes, particularly the increased return-to-office movement in South Africa last year.

Vitality Drive data shows that over 75% of clients who work from offices are now commuting at least three days a week.

On average, in 2023, a typical Discovery Insure client took 117 trips a month, drove nearly 1,700 km a month, and spent 36 hours in their car per month. 

The graph below shows the average number of trips, kilometres travelled, and average trip length per client. 

Companies are facing backlash for their return-to-office policies, and it is becoming established that work-from-home and remote work is here to stay, at least in some capacity.

In the latest Talent Trends report for 2024, professional recruitment firm Michael Page found that employers increasingly admit that flexible work and work-from-home arrangements are core to what employees want from their jobs.

The report, based on a global survey of 50,000 respondents in 37 countries, including South Africa, gauges how the employment landscape has shifted so far this year and what is driving talent trends in professional industries.

A worrying trend has emerged: employees are becoming increasingly agitated and restless in their positions, showing a willingness to leave.

The survey showed that more than half of the respondents (53%) will be actively job-seeking in the next 6 months.

One of the biggest drivers behind this is salary: About one-third of those who said they are seeking a new role consider a higher salary to be an essential motivating factor behind the move, and it’s also one of the key priorities when accepting a new position, Michael Page said.

However, work-life balance and flexible working hours are now also cemented as key factors, showing that workers are doubling down on their desire for greater autonomy.

In the 2023 survey, around 20% of employers saw hybrid/flexible working arrangements and flexible working hours as core recruitment requirements. In 2024, this has pushed up to almost 30%, showing that bosses are starting to realise how serious workers are.

Despite this, the tug-of-war in getting workers back into the office continues.

37% of employees who work in some kind of hybrid arrangement report having to go into the office more in 2024. 25% say they’re working remotely more, and 35% say their arrangement hasn’t changed.